March 10, 2023 — Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez today visited the MareNostrum 5 supercomputer facilities at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) where he underlined his government’s commitment to making Spain a European leader in supercomputing and thereby reinforcing the strategic autonomy of the European Union.

“This project exemplifies our country’s commitment to the R&D system as a vector of growth for Spain. After a lost decade with a lack of economic resources, we now have the ideal regulatory framework, a Science Law that gives stability and certainty to researchers,” Sánchez stated.

The MareNostrum 5 supercomputer, which will have a total investment of 220 million euros (US$235 million), reinforces Spain’s leading position in supercomputing and is a clear example of the Spanish Government’s commitment to the public-private collaboration model and co-governance between administrations.

This project also plays a fundamental role in the Microelectronics and Semiconductors Strategic Project (PERTE Chip) through innovation, job creation and joint collaboration with leading companies in the sector.

A collaboration between the Spanish Government and Intel will give rise to a laboratory for the generation of new supercomputers. The lab will have an investment of 400 million euros (US$427 million) and will create of up to 300 highly qualified jobs.

Reducing the Wage Gap and Promoting STEM Vocations

In a week focused on women’s rights, the Spanish Prime Minister stressed his government’s commitment to reducing the gender wage gap, as well as to promoting diversity in STEM vocations.

In this regard, Sánchez highlighted the importance of the Science Act and the Law on Equal Representation to consolidate progress in equality through measures such as increasing the minimum wage.

“Half of the population should share half of the power, be it political or economic. There may be some who think this is too much, but for us it is a question of justice. In short, you can count on the Government’s full support to make Spain a country of science and a country of women scientists,” said Sánchez.

To see the Spanish Government’s original press release in Spanish, click here.

About BSC

Barcelona Supercomputing Center-Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) is the national supercomputing center in Spain. The center is specialized in high performance computing (HPC) and manages MareNostrum, one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe, located in the Torre Girona chapel. BSC is involved in a number of projects to design and develop energy efficient and high performance chips, based on open architectures like RISC-V, for use within future exascale supercomputers and other high performance domains. The center leads the pillar of the European Processor Project (EPI), creating a high performance accelerator based on RISC-V.

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Source: BSC